Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

[subaro]

question ?. where do you dispose of your toner?. I mean the raw ones that you just vacuumed out of the dev, does it go in the garbage or where ?. Also waste toner bottles, where do you dispose. The industry news is toner is harmless, but i don't buy that. It is a chemical composition of carbon black and other nasty things.



The plastic plague washing up on our shores - CNN.com

[copyman]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

There are far more pollutants than copier toner. Should be more concern about about the "throw away" printers, etc. that are being disposed of in landfills, and will be there next 1000 years! This will harm earth way more than any toner could!

[nekowaiidesu]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

There are far more pollutants than copier toner. Should be more concern about about the "throw away" printers, etc. that are being disposed of in landfills, and will be there next 1000 years! This will harm earth way more than any toner could!

Agreed.. I dump so many cheap inkjets that aren't worth repairing. Pretty frightening to think about all that plastic that is produced, only to be a printer for 12 months before ending up in my scrap pile. I have no idea where it goes from there, supposedly there are people that collect and recycle our stuff. I haven't seen them in the 8 or so months I've worked at this company. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they just take copper from the PCBs and dump the rest anyway. Who knows.

As for toner, we offer to take our customers empty cartridges and in turn someone else collects from us and supposedly recycles. Again, whether that person/business recycles the plastic or just refurbs and resells them I really don't know. The toner that I vacuum or clean from wastebins I usually put into a garbage bag and take it back to the office - I dump it with the empty toner cartridges and just assume the same people dispose of it (correctly or not - again - I have no idea)

[subaro]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

There are far more pollutants than copier toner. Should be more concern about about the "throw away" printers, etc. that are being disposed of in landfills, and will be there next 1000 years! This will harm earth way more than any toner could!

Well, i know there are no solutions for nuclear waste yet, so yes there are more pollutants out there. And are you saying toner is not harmfull or is it the ratio of throw away printers to toner being disposed on landfill. I think the authorities don't have a real solution for toner waste and how to regulate it's disposal, therefore as it is now, it can go to the landfills with no consequences. As it is now, lots of raw toner is being dumped and because the experts said it is not harmfull.

[copyman]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

I'm saying that toner should be a concern but there are far too many other things that will destroy Earth first.

[allan]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

I could remember how sick Panasonic toner made me feel from time to time...

What else should be done with the toner?
Always just been dumping it into a nicely seal bag and into the bin. If i can find them i warn the cleaning crew about the present i left there.

Well its useful to remove odor form those outside bins due to the ozone rich powder.

[Oze]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

I sometimes just tie up the bag of waste toner and leave it the customer's office bin...telling them NOT to incinerate it.
Most of the time however I bring it back to the workshop and put the sealed bag into the Planet Ark recycling box along with the used toner carts.
Planet Ark "promise" that none of this toner winds up in landfill but who knows for sure.

[copiertec]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

Great post, with a lot of food for thought. I never had allergies until I started in this business, the first job I had was refilling toner cartridges for the old Sharp Z57's. It could be coincidence, but I would fill about 10 to 15 a day and would inhale the toner dust that was in the air, I would blow my nose at the end of the day and it was all the nose mucus was black . I was given the option to wear a dust mask but opted not to, I look back now and I wished I would have worn it, then. If you look at the ingredients in the toner it does contain forms of plastic along with carbon. I believe coal-miners were diagnosed with " Black Lung Disease" from prolonged exposure to the carbon dust and coal. So, are my allergies a coincidence, I'll never know, but I guarantee breathing in all that toner sure didn't help.
The article you posted is a sad- scary reality that we have created. The planet Earth is being destroyed in so many ways, forest devastation, landfill space almost at max capacity, complete ecosystems engendered or extinct. I worked for a company that during the summer we would load hundreds of old copiers into trailers, haul them out to the landfill and dump them off, I seriously felt bad about it. I drove by that landfill the other day- it is closed, it's filled to max capacity. I think the problem is only compounded now because of all the "cheap" inkjets out there that only last a year, tossed in the trash to go buy another. I see it time and time again. It seems it's human nature, make as much money as possible- buy it cheap, if it breaks throw it out and buy another and let the next generation deal with it. I have children and I almost feel hopeless about the ecological issues they will have to deal with. I just read an article on Florida, they have spent over $100 million to try to restore the Everglades, they have failed! Water still flows too fast in the wrong direction and they are predicting a huge ecological devastation by 2020- we are the ones who screwed it up in the first place. Secondly, sea level rise- most of Florida's cities along the coast by 2020 will possibly be under water, they are already having salt water intrusion in their aquifers, which I believe is caused mostly by evolution. Oh, they are currently dealing with toxic Blue Green Algae in the water, mind you, this is not red tide, this is a "new" issue.

I digress, as far as my toner bottles and cartridges, I always try to recycle what I can. I wait till the back of my car is filled with them, them I take them to Staples or Office Depot because they claim they recycle them- I often wonder where these cartridges wind up, I hope they are recycling them.

[charm5496]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

all of our machines go to recycling and the cartridges go to appropriate recycling centers. All the toner bottles can be recycled in plastic recycling. Kyocera takes waste toner containers and empty cartridges back at there recycle center and I am pretty sure Konica does as well. Canon claims that there waste toner is non toxic and they do not have a program in place at this time. We have also teamed up with a cartidge company that takes back all of our customers printer and small MFP cartridges at no charge to them. There are options out there to take care of most of the things you posted questions on. You just have to research them and put the processes in place.

Oh, and all of our waste toners and trash come back to our office. We do not allow our techs to leave them in the customers office.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

As far as toner being harmful? Best to ask the 30 year techs how they feel. Logic would say that breathing that stuff in is not good, but how much? Previous job in steel forging exposed me to graphite. 55 gallon drums you dilute with water. On any given day any worker on the "hot" side would look like a coal miner. No breathing protection. It would seep out of mu pores at night while I slept. Was told it was harmless even though the label on the drums state not to have prolonged exposure to skin. Ever get toner blown back in your face? That is how I looked from head to toe for 13 years.

[SwisSeV]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

As a assembly line welder in the past, toner is a joy to work with. Wearing gloves while handling and a mask when it's air born will keep you safe.

About throwing toner away; Is it the plastic case that is the worst problem, or the toner itself? Toner has a relatively inert composition, so what exactly is the environmental damage caused by it?

Obviously the less we throw away the better, but I have had a hard time finding answers to these simple questions.

[subaro]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

As a assembly line welder in the past, toner is a joy to work with. Wearing gloves while handling and a mask when it's air born will keep you safe.

About throwing toner away; Is it the plastic case that is the worst problem, or the toner itself? Toner has a relatively inert composition, so what exactly is the environmental damage caused by it?

Obviously the less we throw away the better, but I have had a hard time finding answers to these simple questions.

The Tobacco industry took a long time before it came to terms with the destructive power it wielded. In those years, there were experts saying that the cigs were not harmfull. True all the data sheets and analysis shows that toner is relative harmless, but not all agree. I can point to some studies that show differently, but would leave this here.

[SwisSeV]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

I was asking about disposal. You are talking about health effects. Two very different issues.

For example, particulate dust is toxic to our lungs, but perfectly safe to dispose of.

Is there something in modern toner that makes it more damaging if put into a landfill? To me the lead, mercury, arsenic and other toxic materials from electronics seem like a much bigger problem. IMO recycling programs are inadequate. Maybe i'm wrong, it's so hard to find real info about this stuff.

[JrTech]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

Another good one. There have been many controversies over the toner and how to dispose of them. Some in the previous posts mentioned about tobacco and the harmful effects found in cigarettes. It is not the Tobacco to blame but the chemicals put into them that are harmful. As with toner you have to break down the chemical compound of the ingredients. Now if you use generic thats a little different as you have no idea what is actually in there but it works. Of course anything airborne can cause long term effects in mass quantities or exposure, but the occasional deep breath wont hurt you, just black snot for a few hours. Now to the tree huggers out there. That company that you are paying a crap load of money to recycle your electronics to include electronic waste, news flash that big dumpster in the back is where all of your local toner goes.
All in all if you are curious of what the ingredients are and the environmental effects, grab a box of toner and find out the chemicals in it. Look for the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets) and it will break down the chemical composition of the ingredients and how much. If you are in the US, your company must have these on hand at all times in hard copy (If not you will find out how much it costs to have them on hand when someone has a reaction and the Fire Department asks for MSDS on that chemical). Big time fine if you dont. You can easily download them from the manufacturers website and a few minutes on the Information Super Highway and you will find out how good/bad those chemicals are for you/environment.

Hope that helps

[SwisSeV]

Re: Is this industry contributing to the new here ?

"It is not the Tobacco to blame but the chemicals put into them that are harmful."
Neither here nor there, but the worst chemicals in cigarettes are naturally occurring in the plant.

Thanks for the info. From what I can tell toner is really a secondary issue. The main problem is electronic "recycling".